Endovascular repair compared with operative repair of traumatic rupture of the thoracic aorta: a nonsystematic review and a plea for trauma-specific reporting guidelines.

BACKGROUND: Thoracic endovascular aortic repair (TEVAR) has become the preferred intervention for managing traumatic thoracic aortic injury. The literature suggests that TEVAR is associated with reduced mortality and paraplegia compared with open repair (OR). The lack of guidelines for reporting results and the paucity of patient follow-up make interpretation of the literature difficult.
METHODS: A literature review of English language papers on thoracic aortic trauma published between 2005 and 2010 was performed. Papers were analyzed to determine how many commented on injury data known to affect outcome (age, hemodynamic stability, injury severity, degree of aortic injury, etc.).
RESULTS: Sixty-two retrospective reviews and six meta-analysis papers were identified. Of the review papers, only 6.4% described aortic anatomy using standard criteria, only 25.8% reported the degree of aortic injury, only 19.4% defined early or emergent intervention, only 32.3% provided details regarding hemodynamic stability, and only 56.5% described injury severity by Injury Severity Score. In a subset analysis of papers containing trauma relevant data, comparing TEVAR with OR, the TEVAR population was older, whereas the OR group was more often unstable. TEVAR had a significantly lower mortality, a trend to reduction in paralysis, but a significantly increased stroke rate. Follow-up was minimal in both groups.
CONCLUSION: The lack of reporting guidelines coupled with a paucity of follow-up data weakens any recommendation regarding the optimal choice of intervention. To address these deficiencies, we recommend reporting guidelines specific to the trauma population that will allow better risk adjustment and improve the quality of the evidence base.